Empowering Brands and Consumers with New ‘Track to the Rack’ Capabilities

Empowering Brands and Consumers with New ‘Track to the Rack’ Capabilities

May 16, 2019

Mass-Scale
Product Digitization Meets the Blockchain

This week we announced an innovative AMPLIFY project between EVRYTHNG, Avery Dennison, IOTA and 1017 ALYX 9SM—raising the bar on the promise of transparency and sustainability in the apparel industry. Consumers now have instant access to full product provenance simply by scanning the apparel item’s QR code label with a smartphone.

While we have been helping brands create direct-to-consumer experiences through mass-scale product digitization for several years—the addition of IOTA’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) allows us to bring a whole new level of transparency to the market. Consumers now receive full provenance information assuring consumers the apparel they buy and wear is ethically sourced from sustainable sources.

Why Now? A New Era of Sustainability

We are witnessing a whole new era of
sustainability. Consumers around the world are increasingly motivated to be
more environmentally conscious and they are exercising their voice through the
products they buy. This said, knowing the provenance of products is a critical
part of a consumer’s decision-making process.

Brands able to provide customers with
product information, supply chain traceability and overall transparency will
come out on top. As in the case of 1017 ALYX 9SM, blockchain and DLTs are
playing a lead role in defining the future of brand protection—while helping
build trust with valued customers.

With today’s announcement we combine the
power of mass-scale product digitization with the immutability of IOTA’s DLT.
This innovative solution will allow brands to meet the divergent needs and
expectations of today’s consumers—from Gen X to Gen Z.

Consumers no longer just make purchasing
decisions based on convenience and price. They make purchasing decisions based on
a brand’s ability to fulfill their need to better the world. In fact, a recent
survey by Nielsen reported 81% of global
respondents feel strongly that companies should help improve the environment.
This passion for corporate social responsibility is shared across gender lines
and generations. Gen Z, Millenials and Gen X are the most supportive, but Baby
Boomers aren’t far behind.

Taking a Deep Dive into the Technology

The
proof of concept distributed ledger technology (DLT) solution announced today
is an extension of Avery Dennison’s Janela™
platform, powered by EVRYTHNG, which allows brands to create clothing that is
born digital, and connect with their customers directly via a QR code on the
label containing a unique product identity. With this announcement, we’ve added the
capabilities of EVRYTHNG Blockchain
Integration Hub partner, IOTA, to provide consumers with full
transparency and provenance for the 1017 ALYSX 9SM apparel items they purchase
and wear.

By
scanning a unique QR code on the garment’s label with their smartphone,
consumers can view the clothing item’s “journey” and track it back from
creation to the rack and point of sale. At the same time, 1017 ALYX 9SM and
other brands will now have full visibility of their product’s journey
throughout the supply chain, giving them access to real-time data and
statistics, via IOTA’s DLT, also known as the
Tangle.

This
last point is very important to consumers who have lost trust in brands. With
this new solution, consumers can be assured the provenance data shared by 1017
ALYX 9SM is authentic because it is written to an immutable and decentralized
network—making it impossible to forge.

The solution also includes an integration with OriginTrail, another EVRYTHNG Blockchain Integration Hub partner. The use of OriginTrail’s blockchain facilitates decentralized data sharing between supply chain partners, including, global collaboration, reliability, auditability, while assuring only authorized parties gain access to the data.

These images display both what the consumer receives upon scanning a QR code to authenticate the data trail of an apparel item and what 1017 ALYX 9SM and its supply chain partners see as items travel through the supply chain from sourcing to retail.

Track
to the Rack

There
are many things that make this solution different but one of the biggest
differentiators and benefits for brands is the scalability of this solution. We
successfully worked with Avery Dennison to deploy a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) of
this solution across different factories to simulate real-world manufacturing processes.
With 1017 ALYX 9SM, we bring this PoC to the real world. As displayed in the
image above, brands can now collect real-time data intelligence throughout an
apparel item’s supply chain journey no matter how many factories or third
parties may be involved, and then preserve this data in the blockchain—or in
the case of 1017 ALYX 9SM, IOTA’s distributed ledger—in a cost-effective and
highly scalable manner.

Taking
this one step further, we allow consumers to access detailed transparency data,
down to the raw materials used to manufacture the item, via a simple and
convenient QR code scan. We do this by activating products at source with a
label embedded with a scannable digital identity.

EVRYTHNG
Blockchain Integration Hub and IOTA

As shared, the use of blockchain and/or
distributed ledger technology in itself is a big differentiator for brands.
Last month we celebrated the one-year anniversary of the EVRYTHNG Blockchain
Integration Hub. The EVRYTHNG Hub helps brands simply and cost-effectively
assess which blockchain solutions and capabilities are most appropriate for
their business and then rapidly deploy. By removing a number of risks
associated with deploying blockchain technologies, we allow brands to focus on
experimenting with the business benefits rather than the complexity of the
technology. A win-win for the brand and the consumer.

Using the EVRYTHNG Blockchain Integration
Hub, we were able to combine two of the distributed ledgers we integrate with
to deliver a complete solution for 1017 ALYX 9SM. Currently, the fees charged
by other public blockchains like, Ethereum and Bitcoin, makes the application
of the technology for full traceability impractical. With IOTA’s unique
distributed ledger technology, people and machines can transfer data or value
without any transaction fees in a trustless, permissionless and decentralized
environment.

What’s Next

This
is just the beginning of continued big changes we expect to see in the apparel
industry and consumer products industry at large. We believe current consumer
expectations for provenance data is only going to grow as voices rise in the
call for sustainability. And the integration of blockchain and other DLTs into
supply chain traceability solutions will transition from being considered a
competitive differentiator to an industry requirement. Our EVRYTHNG Blockchain
Integration Hub removes the risk for consumer product brands wanting to explore
the possibilities of blockchain. To learn more, feel free to contact us at https://evrythng.com/contact-us/